Terri Proud, a newly hired Administrative Assistant in the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services, landed in the pit recently when she (allegedly) made comments about women’s menstrual cycles in combat. She was fired, and her boss, Colonel Joey Strickland, was asked by the Arizona governor to resign (apparently, Strickland hired Proud against the Governor’s wishes).

According to the Arizona-Sonora News Service, when asked about women serving on the front lines, Proud said “Women have certain things during the month I’m not sure they should be out there dealing with….”

Proud says she was misquoted. Was she or wasn’t she? Even if the quote is verbatim, I struggle to imagine a government official’s capacity to register the absurdity of this comment, but maybe I am just cynical. Suffice it to say, there is surely more to this obviously political here, but I’d like to focus on the menstrual dimension.

The assumptions about what women can and cannot do while menstruating make for a long and logic-defying list. The rationale for menstrual prohibitions is sometimes religious (e.g., bans on menstruating women from religious rites, sex, and food preparation). There’s another category of no-nos beyond the menstrual taboo, though. Women can’t do [fill in the blank] because their periods render them incapacitated or otherwise put them at risk. Many people still believe a woman should not camp or hike in bear infested woods because their menstrual odor will render them bear bait. Not true. Often, women themselves are constructed as the predators during their PRE-menstrual period. You know….PMSing women are dangerous, even potentially homicidal. And women can’t be trusted to make decisions (or serve on the Supreme Court) because they are Out Of Control.

But we know differently. Women—during all phases of the menstrual cycle—can do all manner of things, all the time, thank you very much, including jobs that are not, shall we say, menstrual management-friendly. They fight forest fires. They collect data in remote field sites. They orbit space. They are perform brain surgery.

Yet, PREJUDICE against women is often JUSTIFIED because they menstruate. The Disability Rights/Inclusion Movement has taught us that often, the most pernicious barriers to inclusion are perceptions, not the actual limits imposed by our disabilities. That’s certainly the case here. Let me go out on limb here: if women were respected, if women were valued, if women were seen as competent peers, then the fact of their menstruation would be less of a “disability” and more of a fact of a life.

But you know what? I want to give Terri Proud the benefit of the doubt for a minute. When pressed about her comment by The Arizona Daily Star, Proud said “I don’t have a problem with women being on the front line if that’s their choice….I’m not going to sit there and say, ‘No, you don’t have that right.” In the same story, Proud is described as harboring a “curiosity” about “how menstrual cycles are handled” and noted “that whether or not that hurdle is being addressed is a real issue, even if it isn’t talked about. Women are designed differently from men and need to have their needs met on the front lines.” And I say to that: well done Terri Proud, Menstrual Activist.

One answer: Suppress menstruation through the use of extended oral contraceptive pills. That is an option, yes, but it might not be the right one for every woman. Even beyond many menstrual cycle researchers discomfort with the one-size-fits-all approach to dosing cycle-stopping contraception (readers of re:Cycling are no stranger to concerns about this trend), there is a deeper concern about the implications of just making the menses go away.

Cycle stopping contraception offered as an option (not a mandate)—including an honest discussion of risks and benefits?

Quality reproductive health care in which menstrual health is a part of a comprehensive whole?

Work cultures, even remote ones, that acknowledge cyclical and variable human needs of all sorts?

Otherwise, if women must alter their very bodies to “fit in” and be taken seriously in their jobs, show me the ground we have gained. Cuz when I look down, all I see is the bottom of the same ole stinky pit.

6 Responses to “#Making Menstruation Matter—For All the Wrong Reasons”

Bravo! “The feminine non-mensturating body, is not, as popularly believed, liberated, but rather, one held even tighter to the hegemonic male standard.”

This is a brilliant and profound statement that needs to be shared with every woman – everywhere.

Our fight for reproductive choice and birth control has been turned against us. Women are now ‘controlled’ by the pharmaceutical and medical industry under the new ACOG guidelines pushing for synthetic contraceptive implants, injections and insertions. Women now have to ‘see their doctor’ for birth control – and plead with their doctor to have them taken out when the devices upset their hormonal balance.

And then of course, we have seen women prescribed SSRI’s and other addicting drugs in addition to their synthetic hormone cocktails.

Women’s bodies have become hostages to the very system we fought to be liberated from.

It seems to me that the more advances women make – the more severe the backlash.

Thank you Chris – I will use your article in my workshops and in speaking with women who have lost control of their bodies.

The first is that management of menstrual issues for all women, no matter what they do for a living, must be about a range of choices, with no one choice being considered the answer for all women. For example, it is often suggested that athletes are terrifically suitable candidates for menstrual suppression contraceptives, even though studies show, and athletic coaches are aware, women taking oral contraceptives build less muscle mass than women who don’t. These drugs can be used continually to suppress menstruation. You’d think military women would want to achieve maximum muscle strength and endurance also.

The second is the “curiosity” Terri Proud acknowledged she has about how menstrual cycles are handled. I’m curious about this too! We need to talk more openly about these issues and how they affect women in all fields of endeavour. If this incident opens the door to those kinds of conversations, bring them on. But we must do our best to avoid and reject ridicule, inappropriate humour, or finding further false justification for women not being “suitable” for certain jobs and careers. Chris, your four-point plan is a great start.

However I’d feel more comfortable if “Yet, PREJUDICE against women is often JUSTIFIED because they menstruate” were changed to “because WE menstruate.”
I feel that owning our own menstruation or hot flushes or aging. . . is the first step in achieving equity and freedom as women.